Kamau Brathwaite: The Emigrants (1967) From his: Rights
of Passage[excerpts]
ISo you have seen themwith their cardboard grips,felt hats, rain-cloaks, the womenwith their plainor purple-tintedcoats hiding their fatten-ed hips.

These are The Emigrants.On sea-port quaysat air-portsanywhere where there is shipor train, swiftmotor car, or jetto travel faster than the breezeyou see them gathered:passports stampedtheir travel papers wrappedin old disused news-papers: lining their patient queues.

Where to?They do not know.Canada, the PanamaCanal, the Miss-issippi painfields, Florida?Or on to dockat hissing smoke lockedGlasgow?

Why do they go?They do not know.Seeking a jobthey settle for the very bestthe agent has to offer:jabbing a neighbourout of work for four bobless a week.

What do they hope forwhat find therethese New World marinersColumbus coursing kaffirs

What Cathay shoresfor them are gleaming goldenwhat magic keys they carry to unlockwhat gold endragoned doors?

3But now the claws are iron: mouldydredges do not care what we discover here:the Mississippi mud is sticky:

men die thereand bouquets of stench lieall night long along the river bank.

In London, Undergrounds are cold.The train rolls in from darknesswith our fears

and leaves a lonely soft metallic clankingin our ears.In New York

nights are hotin Harlem, Brooklyn,along Long Island Sound

This city is so vastits ears have ceased to knowa simple human sound

Police cars waillike babiesan ambulance erupts

like breaking glassan elevator sighslike Jews in Europe's gasses

then slides us swiftlydown the ropes to hell,Where is the bell

that used to warn us,playing cricket on the beach,that it was mid-day: sun too hot

for heads. And evening'sangelus of fish soup,prayers, bed?

6The chaps who drive the City busesdon't like us clipping for them much;in fact, make quite a fuss.Bus strikes loom soon.

The men who lever alein stuffy Woodbine pubsdon't like us much.No drinks there soon.

Or broken bottles.The women who come downto open doors a crackwill sometimes crack

your fingers if you don'twatch out. Sorry!Full! Not even Breadand Breakfast soon

for curly headed workers.So what to do, man?Ban the Bomb? Bombthe place down?